Chapter Eight.

A tall, lean man of about sixty years of age, of dignified appearance, came out of a house in Fitzjohn’s Avenue, Hampstead, and walked slowly in the direction of the station at Swiss Cottage.

He was a very aristocratic-looking person; you might have taken him for a retired ambassador, except for the fact that retired ambassadors do not live in the neighbourhood of Finchley Road. At the first glance you might have thought he was an Englishman, with his clear complexion, his short, pointed beard. A closer inspection revealed the distinguishing traits of the foreigner. But even then you would have been inclined to put him down as a Frenchman, rather than a Spaniard.

Ferdinand Contraras, such was his name, was one of the principal leaders of the world-wide anarchist movement. A man of learning and education, he had worked it out to his own satisfaction that anarchy was the cure for all social evils. A man of considerable wealth, he had devoted the greater portion of his possessions to the spreading of this particular propaganda. His zeal in the great cause burnt him with a consuming fire.

One is confronted with these anomalies in all countries—men of family and refinement, reaching out sincere hands to the proletariat, and welcoming them into a common brotherhood.

Mirabeau led the French Revolution in its first steps, an aristocrat of the first water. Tolstoi, equally an aristocrat, preached very subversive doctrines.

Ferdinand Contraras, from conviction, sentimentality, or some other equally compelling motives, hated his own order, and devoted himself heart and soul to the service of the masses as against the classes. He had spent much more than half his very considerable fortune on the necessary propaganda of his principles. From the house in Fitzjohn’s Avenue he, in conjunction with a few other enthusiastic spirits, controlled the policy which was directed to upset an old and effete world and construct a new and perfect one on the ruins of the old.

He waited outside the station for quite five minutes, tapping his stick impatiently the while. He was, by temperament, a very impatient and autocratic person, like most people who aspire to sovereign power.

The burly and imposing figure of Luçue appeared through the gloom of the station. The two men shook hands. Contraras grumbled a little.

“My friend, punctuality was never your very special virtue. You were to be at my house by a quarter-past six. It is now a quarter to seven, half an hour late, and I am meeting you at the station. It would take another five minutes to get to my house.”

“That would mean I should be quite thirty-five minutes late, eh?” queried Luçue in his usual easy, genial fashion. He had the greatest respect for the great leader, Ferdinand Contraras; he fully recognised his single-mindedness, his devotion to the cause. But he was also aware of his little weaknesses of temper, his proneness to take offence at trifles. “I am honestly very sorry I have kept you waiting, but it was impossible to get away before.”

Luçue surveyed the neighbourhood around him with some contempt, and added: “Besides, if you will live in an out-of-the-way spot like this, you can’t blame your friends if they find it a bit difficult to get to you.”

Luçue himself lived in lodgings in a mean street in Soho. In spite of his reverence for his chief, he did not quite relish the fact that Contraras was living in a lordly pleasure house, that he fared every day on the daintiest food, and was very particular as to vintages. Contraras, in spite of his sacrifices to the great cause, was not exactly practising what he preached.

Luçue himself was poor. Hence, perhaps, these profound meditations. It would not be going too far to say that Luçue was already anticipating the day when Contraras would be required, under the new dispensation, to hand over the remainder of his wealth for the common benefit.

But things had not got so far as this at the moment. Law and order were still in the ascendant, and anarchy had not yet got its foot into the stirrup, much less was it mounted in the saddle.

The two men walked up to the house in Fitzjohn’s Avenue, where Contraras lived in some sort of state. A butler opened the door, a footman hovered in the background. There would be a dinner of many courses, there would be wines of the first quality. For the leader of the great anarchist movement did himself and his friends very well. Poor Contraras! He often failed to notice the envious eyes of his friends, the humble friends who left his hospitable house to return to their dingy lodgings in Soho, or the mean streets off Tottenham Court Road.

He took Luçue into his private sitting-room. A decanter of whiskey, soda-water, and glasses were ready on the table, placed there by the thoughtful butler. In the best of all possible worlds there would be no butlers thought Luçue grimly, as he helped himself at his host’s invitation.

“What of Guy Rossett?” asked Contraras abruptly, when the two men were seated. “He knows a great deal. He knows too much.”

“My section is dealing with his affair,” replied Luçue smoothly. “Violet Hargrave and Andres Moreno are over in Spain, as of course you know.”

Contraras grunted. He was not in a very good mood to-night; he had not yet forgiven Luçue for his lack of punctuality.

“Violet Hargrave I know, of course, a friend and protégée of our staunch old comrade Jaques. Moreno I know nothing about. Who is he, what is he?”

Luçue explained. Moreno was a journalist, his father pure Spanish, his mother an Englishwoman. His principles were sound. He was a revolutionary heart and soul.

Contraras was still in the grunting stage. He helped himself to another whiskey.

“You are a judge of men, Luçue; you seldom make mistakes,” he said, in rather a grudging voice.

“I don’t quite like the idea of the English mother. You have thought that all out?”

“Quite,” was the swift reply. “Moreno comes to us with settled convictions. He is, like yourself, a philosophical anarchist.”

It certainly said a good deal for Moreno’s powers of persuasion that he had succeeded in convincing the suspicious Luçue of his sincerity.

The gong sounded for dinner. Contraras kept to his gentlemanly habits; his house was ordered in orthodox fashion. His wife, a faded-looking woman, who had once been a beauty, sat at the head of the table. His daughter, a comely, dark-eyed girl, his only child, faced the guest. Neither wife nor daughter had the slightest sympathy with the peculiar views of the head of the household. As a matter of fact, they thought he was just a trifle insane on this one particular point.

They detested the strange-looking men, some of them in very shabby raiment, who came to this well-appointed house in Fitzjohn’s Avenue, to partake of their chief’s hospitality and drink his choice wines. They marvelled between themselves at the blindness of Contraras. Could he not see that these shabby creatures hated him for his wealth, for the hospitality which they regarded as a form of ostentation?

Several times both mother and daughter had tried to point this out to him.

“Live in a little forty-pound-a-year house, without a maid, with Inez and me to scrub and cook, and they might believe in you,” his wife had remarked bitterly on one occasion when her nerves had been more than usually upset by the intrusion of some very shabby looking guests. “Of course, now they reckon you up at your true value. You are making the best of the present order of things, getting the best you can out of it. Bah! What do you expect if your dreams come to pass? They will not leave you a sixpence, these wretches whom you have put into power. They will strip you at once.”

The visionary had smiled condescendingly. He had a poor opinion of the mental capacity of women. They had no initiative, no foresight.

But he was very tolerant to the weaker vessel. He patted the faded cheek of his once beautiful wife, a daughter of the old Spanish nobility. He was a kind husband, a fond father.

“You do not understand these difficult matters, my dear,” he replied in his loftiest tones. “The world will always be governed by brains, whether under a just or an unjust régime.” He tapped his broad forehead significantly. “When it comes to brains, Ferdinand Contraras will not be found wanting.”

Madame shrugged her shoulders and glanced at her pretty daughter, who made a signal of assent. Certainly, Contraras, great as was his power in anarchist circles, was not held in high esteem in his own family.

Towards Luçue the two women did not exhibit the same signs of aversion which they usually displayed to the other guests. The reason was obvious. He was a self-seeking, grasping fellow. He loved the flesh-pots, the good things of life. If he got into power with his chief, they would take the best for themselves and let their poor dupes feed on the husks. The difference between the two men was that Contraras was troubled with an almost ridiculous sentimentality. Luçue, big, genial, and humorous, was as callous as any human being could be. And he, moreover, had no conscience.

The meal was finished. Although in a way Luçue despised his chief’s ostentatious mode of living, he was very fond of good wine and food. There might come a time when, through Contraras’ brains, he would be in a similar position. The two men adjourned to the private sitting-room, where the great man produced some special brandy and choice cigars.

“Drink, my friend,” said the host genially. “We shall think none the less wisely because we take an excellent glass of brandy and smoke an equally excellent cigar.”

Luçue assented, but after a brief pause he spoke a little bluntly.

“You will not think I am taking a liberty, my good comrade, if I say a few words to you. We have a difficult team to drive. Many of our brotherhood, most, alas, are very poor. Exception is taken by some of them to your mode of living. They think the great Contraras should bring himself more on a level with his less fortunate brethren.”

Contraras frowned. By nature he was more autocratic than the most despotic monarch who even subjugated a docile people. But he recognised that Luçue’s words conveyed a warning.

“What would they have? My wife has said the same thing to me, and at the time I fancied it was the foolish babbling of a woman. Now I see that there was some wisdom in her remarks.”

“Equality is our watchword,” observed Luçue with a rather subtle smile.

“Of course,” agreed Contraras smoothly. “That is our aim, our goal. But, under present conditions, we cannot practise it. I have, as you know, given the greater portion of my money to the cause. I have proved my sincerity. You will say I have left some for myself. True, but that is a wise policy. I live here in a certain sort of comfort. The position I keep up helps me to remain unsuspected. Nobody will think I am such a fool as to embrace anarchy. With these trappings, I can work better for the cause than if I hid myself in a back street in Soho.”

Luçue agreed. The chief had a long head. Luçue might envy, but he could not refrain from admiring him.

Contraras broke away from the embarrassing topic of inequality in fortune. He spoke brusquely.

“To return to this Englishman, Rossett. You think you can settle his hash?”

Luçue nodded his big head. “It is settled, as I told you. I am working in conjunction with Alvedero and Zorrilta.”

“No two better men, they are staunch to the core, true sons of Spain,” said Contraras approvingly. “One thing I would love to know, Luçue. Who supplied Rossett with his information?”

“That I am also keen to know. There are always traitors in every camp. Perhaps some day I may find out.”

The two men talked till it was time for Luçue to catch his train. Contraras walked with him to the station.

The chief wrung him by the hand. “If you ever find that traitor, no half measures, you understand.”

Luçue smiled a grim smile. “You can never accuse me of sentimentality. The penalty for every traitor is death.”